1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to telephone answering equipment and particularly to a telephone answering device which automatically answers an incoming call with a predetermined message, provides a recording apparatus for recording an incoming message, and provides a recorded time signal which allows a determination of the time and date than an incoming call was received.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Recent years have seen a proliferation of different types of telephone answering systems which will automatically answer an incoming call, provide a recorded message to the caller, and subsequently provide a recording function to allow the caller to record a message for the called party.
Recent years have also seen the development of improved telephone answering systems which allow the called party to remotely access his recorded messages. Often, the called party obtains access to the messages by dialing the telephone number of the answering equipment and providing control signals corresponding to recorder functions when the answering equipment seizes the line. Typical recorder functions which may be remotely controlled by the called party include review of recorded messages, recording of new predetermined outgoing messages, and erasing recorded incoming messages which have been reviewed.
A problem with conventional telephone answering equipment is that the called party typically has no way of determining the time of day when a particular message was received. At best, the called party is only able to determine that one call was received prior to a later call simply because of the order of review of the recorded messages.
The problem with reviewing recorded messages in the sequence in which they were received is that there may sometimes have been calls received which have already been responded to by the called party. For example, a particular calling party, because of the urgency of a message, will repeatedly call and leave recorded messages for the called party. The called party, after he begins review of his recorded messages, typically responds by returning the call to the calling party. Subsequently, the called party may return other calls and may undertake some work activity prior to reviewing other messages.
In the interim, there may or may not have been received other incoming messages. When the called party begins to review his recorded messages again, should he encounter another message from a party whose call he has already returned, he may undergo some confusion as to whether he has already responded to the particular calling party. This problem is especially acute if there is a prolonged period of time between review and response to recorded messages.
In conventional telephone answering equipment, the called party has no means for determining whether a given recorded message from a particular calling party, if received subsequent to a response given to a previous message from that same party, is a subsequently received message which requires a new response, or is instead another of perhaps several repeated messages left by that calling party. Since incoming messages are recorded sequentially, the called party might be reviewing a recorded message to which he has already responded. Or, he might instead be reviewing a new message from the same party to which a response should be given.
The Bell System provides a service in its Stored Program Controlled (SPC) network wherein a telephone customer may have call answering (CA) performed at the telephone office. In this service, just prior to returning a message to the customer, the CA service automatically tells the customer the time of day and day of week in which that message was recorded. This CA service, while it alleviates many of the problems related to insufficient information about messages, is based upon a large, centrally located computer system which stores messages in digital form on mass disk storage. There is need, however, for a compact, inexpensive and convenient call answering system which provides the same features but at reduced cost and inconvenience.